Here's the inked version of the programme for Cheltenham lit fest: I left the pencil in blue, you can can catch glimpses of a few things that have changed from the original pencil version. So Vern and Lettuce and the gang from Pickle Rye are starting to get excited about their big road trip in October.

Hey, I just got a great e-mail from a new teacher about Morris the Mankiest Monster that totally made my day!Dear Sarah,I'm taking my PGCE at Kingston University and saw you when you came in to talk to us about animating and picture books.

I just wanted to write to thank you, Giles Andreae and Morris the Mankiest Monster as I used the book for a job interview, the book went down a storm and I will now be teaching year 2 at a great school! I had borrowed the book from my housemate who had also used it in an interview where she was successful too so Morris is now our lucky, if a little disgusting, house mascott :o)

Best wishes, Mel Lawrence

I was so curious about how she'd used Morris in an interview, and she wrote back:

Thank you! Of course you can blog the comment - I'm telling everyone to use Morris for interviews :o)

I was asked to share a story of my choice for 10mins so I read the book and asked the children to mime disgusted faces whenever they thought something was a bit foul and then we made up our own character called Gregory the Grubby Gremlin... One of the Governors who watched came up to me at the end to tell me about his daughter who used to eat her bogies, it was brilliant :o)

The Cheltenham pictures great! Love the way lettuce is kind of surfing on the bonnet. And the little bird thing hiding in the front headlamp. Oh and the way all the wheels are miss matched..... I could go on and on!